HR & delivery ops glossary

A recurring private conversation between a manager and a direct report — the highest-leverage retention ritual in small teams.

Software that runs hiring as a pipeline — jobs, candidates, stages, interview feedback and offers in one place instead of an inbox and a spreadsheet.

Money invoiced but not yet paid. Revenue on paper, risk in practice — managed through an aging view: who owes what, and how far past the due date.

The share of a person's working week assigned to a given project — 60% of a 40-hour week ≈ 24 hours. The building block capacity plans are made of.

The rate at which people leave: leavers over a period divided by average headcount over the same period. In a services business it is delivery risk and margin loss wearing an HR label.

People — or fractions of their time — not currently allocated to client work. A managed bench is a staffing buffer; an unmanaged one is silent margin loss.

The hourly price a client pays for a person's work — set per project or per assignment. One of the two levers (with utilization) that services revenue hangs on: revenue = hours × rate.

The share of a billable person's available time spent on client-billable work — the single number that most directly drives a services company's revenue.

One average hourly rate for a mixed-seniority team: total amount billed ÷ total hours billed. Convenient for quoting — and honest only while the mix underneath stays what you priced.

How your hiring process feels from the other side — response speed, clarity of stages, scheduling friction, how rejection and offers are handled. It compounds into employer brand.

Proactively finding and approaching people who never applied — the outbound half of recruiting, and the half with real GDPR obligations attached.

A forward, week-by-week view of who is booked and who is free: planned assignment hours minus approved time off against the working-week baseline.

Deciding who works on what and when, based on each person's available hours over the coming weeks — the operating rhythm of a services business.

A written, priced change to agreed scope — what changes, what it costs, how it moves the timeline, who approved it. The mechanism that keeps scope explicit instead of creeping.

What an hour of a person's time costs the company — monthly cost spread over working hours. The number a billable rate must clear before an engagement makes money.

The GDPR-required contract between a company (controller) and a vendor processing personal data on its behalf (processor). For an HR system, mandatory paperwork — not a formality.

The average number of days between invoicing and getting paid: (accounts receivable ÷ revenue for the period) × days in the period. The speed dial on the cash cycle.

A structured way for employees to recommend candidates from their networks, usually with a bonus paid after the referred hire stays a defined period.

The reputation a company carries as a place to work — what candidates believe before the first call. It is built from real signals, not campaigns.

A structured conversation with a departing employee about why they are leaving and what the company should hear — the most honest feedback you will ever collect, if you actually use it.

A one-question engagement metric — “How likely are you to recommend us as a place to work?” — scored from −100 to +100.

A contract selling a defined scope for a fixed sum. Estimation risk moves to the vendor: overruns eat the margin, efficiency gains keep it.

A structured form an interviewer completes right after the conversation: ratings per criterion plus an explicit hire / no-hire verdict, comparable across candidates and interviewers.

The internal request to open a role: what is being hired, how many openings, on what terms and why — decided before anything goes public.

Splitting a fixed-price engagement into invoices tied to delivered stages — a deposit, then agreed slices on acceptance. Cash flow for the vendor, risk control for the client.

The interval between announcing an employment termination and the last working day — set by law or contract, and in practice the window in which offboarding happens.

The structured exit process — access revocation, asset return, knowledge handover, final pay and an exit interview — the mirror image of onboarding.

The share of extended offers that candidates accept: accepted ÷ offers extended. A late-funnel health check on compensation, speed and expectation-setting.

A peer — deliberately not the manager — assigned to a new hire for the first weeks: the person you can ask the questions you'd hesitate to ask your boss.

Hours worked beyond the standard week. An occasional crunch is life; sustained overtime is a staffing or estimation problem surfacing in people's evenings.

A time-boxed written plan for an underperforming employee: specific gaps, measurable outcomes, support and checkpoints — with an honest statement of what happens either way.

Professional Services Automation — the software category that runs a services business end to end: resourcing, timesheets, project accounting and billing, usually plus a sales pipeline.

The gradual earning of paid time off over time worked — e.g. 20 days per year accruing at 1.67 days per month — with rules for carryover and payout.

What happens to unused vacation days at year-end: they expire, roll over up to a cap, or roll over without limit. A small policy choice with payroll-liability consequences.

A defined trial window at the start of employment — commonly 3 months in CEE IT — with explicit check-ins and lighter termination terms.

The explicit decision at the end of the trial period — confirm, extend, or part ways — made against the criteria set on day one, on a date someone owns.

The share of a project's revenue left after the cost of delivering it: (revenue − delivery cost) ÷ revenue. The per-project profitability check every services company needs.

The share of worked hours that actually reaches an invoice: billed hours ÷ worked billable hours. Utilization measures selling your time; realization measures getting paid for it.

A billing model where the client pays a fixed monthly fee for an agreed amount of capacity — predictable revenue for the vendor, guaranteed availability for the client.

Annual revenue divided by full-time headcount — the bluntest single measure of how efficiently a services company turns people's time into money.

Extrapolating the current pace: this month's revenue or cost × 12 = the annual figure if nothing changes. Fast and useful — as long as it's labelled an assumption, not a forecast.

The quiet growth of what's being delivered with no matching change in price or timeline — margin leaking away one reasonable-sounding request at a time.

A 1-on-1 between a manager's manager and an individual contributor without the middle layer present — signal-gathering for the leader, a direct channel for the report.

Matching people to project demand: who fills the slot, from when, at what allocation, and whether their skills fit. The decision that turns capacity into revenue.

The contract annex that defines one engagement: scope, deliverables, timeline, team, billing model and rates, acceptance and change procedure. The document delivery actually runs on.

An interview where every candidate for the role faces the same criteria, comparable questions and the same rating scale — evaluation by design instead of by impression.

A contract model where the client pays for actual hours worked at agreed rates — flexible on scope, demanding on time tracking.

Days from a candidate entering the pipeline to being hired — the speed of your funnel from the candidate's side, and the metric slow feedback loops quietly destroy.

Everything an employee receives for the work: base pay plus bonuses, benefits, equity and perks — the full package offers actually compete on.

The billable-utilization level a services company plans around — commonly a 70–85% band for delivery roles. A target to manage against, not a ceiling to chase.